Send to support and ask. KaW Support - Create Ticket
KaW Discord may also be useful - others will have experience.
There or here in forums, I have heard Counsellors can be made Master by asking Support, after 1 (?) months absense.
I have seen nothing about non-Counsellors - but many will be very interested in any success, failures, or details, you experience with support.
Certainly this issue affects many of us, so any info will be helpful.
Here's the answer I got from support:
"We can help in this situation only if a long term member of the Order contact us. If you joined the Order after the Order Master went away, we are sorry that we cannot help. We can only transfer the leadership of the Order to an active member. "
However they don't define "long term".
I asked support to define "long term", here's all I got: "We can only transfer the leadership of an Order to another member if the Order Master is absent for at least 30 days and if there are other active members in the Order who were members of it while the Order Master was actively playing the game. We cannot transfer the leadership to a player who joined the Order after the Order Master stopped playing the game.
If you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to contact us. Have a great day! "
Therefore in the case I was asking about a member would have to have been active over 121wks ago, which I consider highly unlikely.
However I hope this info is useful to anyone who finds themselves masterless.
Dead orders are a problem. I do understand their wanting to prevent someone from taking control of a citidal they didn't put any work or resources into.
I have taken a few leaves longer than a month from the game. (Between heavy seasonal workloads and boredom from long wait times for buildings, studies ect ..)
A couple of ideas would be that after 30 of inactivity the clan leadership is open to be claimed, in order of rank. First by the counselors. Give then 24 or 48 hours, then move on to marshals. Eventually it's open to any member. If after another 30 days or so put the clan on probation. Notify all member that if they have no leader after another 30 days or so the order will be declaired dead. This will give them a final opportunity to select a leader, or join a different order.
Upon being declaired dead the members would all be removed and any clan holdings eliminated from the game.
If you stretch the entire process out over 3 to 6 months it will be difficult for anyone to complain about coming back and finding themselves without a home.
This would slowely minimize the order wars against dead clans. It would allow loyal members one last chance to try and cling onto what they have accomplished with their old order before being forced into one of the remaining ones.
I'm in exactly this situation. Master and counselors inactive for 30 + weeks but I joined after that so can't do anything. I agree with your first paragraph and like the ideas you suggest.
Failing that what about a paid for item, similar to buying carriages when moving kingdoms. There could be conditions attached like you suggest so somebody doesn't just waltz in and take over.
There are far too many dead orders taking up space. No fun playing against a dead order, don't need to do much to win.